The Not-Coven

In Wicca, the way we repay our teachers for the knowledge they’ve passed on, for the effort they put into teaching us, is by putting in that same effort and passing that knowledge to our own students in time. And, in some way, I also want to be the help that my past self needed. I can’t go back in time, but maybe I can be there for someone else now.

When I became Wiccan, in college, I was very sure that I would have to be a solitary forever because there were absolutely no British Traditional Wiccan covens in West Michigan. (Spoiler: There were; I just didn’t find them.) I graduated and moved out East, where I connected with Blue Star groves and teachers and began learning and practicing Blue Star Wicca. If I ever moved back home, I thought, I would start a coven of my own, because I had felt such a deep loss that there were no covens near me then. I felt called to that Work.

The Wheel turns, life goes on, and before I really did move back, I discovered that there have been covens and individual Wiccans here in Michigan for a long time — if I’d known where to look or who to talk to. And since I’ve come back, new covens and groups from several traditions have sprung up, reopened, or become more public and easier to find, including MoonFire, the Alexandrian coven in which I am now training as a first-degree initiate. Problem solved, right? Covens were here all along!

Yet my calling remained: Start the coven. Here, where it’s needed.

Because of that calling, I have carried this not-coven with me for years, waiting for the right moment, the right people, and the right training (on my part). Here’s what I know about it:

It will be formed to serve the Lord and Lady of Wicca and to meet the spiritual needs of witches in rural West Michigan by offering regular rituals, community, and training in traditional Wicca.

It will be a lineaged Chthonioi Alexandrian coven, and it will be inclusive, welcoming all ages and all genders.

It will focus on providing experiential, hands-on learning. I’m definitely a book person, but there’s a difference between reading a ritual and experiencing it. Coveners will have the knowledge and confidence to lead rituals and just try stuff. Why not?

At the moment, everything is provisional and focused on the future because it’s just not time yet. There are personal and collective processes of growth that can’t be rushed.

So, right now, I have a not-coven. It’s a seed, a plan, an idea, waiting for the right moment and the right people.

That said: If you’ve arrived at this page because you were hoping against hope that there was a traditional Wiccan coven near you in West Michigan, please contact me and consider coming to MoonFire’s free, regular public rituals at Artes & Craft in Hartford, Michigan.

Updated March 2019

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